Understand Horse Behavior For Successful Training

If you want to teach your horse something you havelanguage extremely well. And your body language
to understand first is how he ticks. It does not reallynever lies!
matter what you want to teach him. First of all youAs horse trainers we have to become very aware of
have to understand horses and learn to think horse.ourselves and the signals we are sending out to our
You have to be able to read your equine andhorses. Often the horse is given the blame for the
communicate with him. Also important is that you arewrong reaction. But when you observe these
able to judge the horse. What are his physical and alsosituations closely you will realize that the one training
mental capabilities? What is he able to do?the horse has given very confusing signals or that he
You have to realize where equines came from andwas not even aware that he was communicating with
how they evolved. We have to respect their nature tothe horse!
be able to work successfully with a horse. After all weYour best teacher is always the horse. Sit down and
are predators and equines are prey animals. This iswatch a group of horses. Watch how they
bound to lead to problems in communication andcommunicate with each other. Give special attention to
understanding one another.their body language. Can you make out their pecking
Our thinking and our expectations are often far tooorder? The dominant one will make the other equines
human and we nearly expect them to have the samemove out of his way. He will be the first one to eat.
logical thinking skills. Fact is that equines do not needAnd pinning the ears is often enough to move another
these capabilities in their natural environment.horse out of the way. If a lower ranking horse does
People are often unaware about all the confusingnot respond adequately the dominant one will bite and
signals they are sending out to their horses. Humanskick.
underestimate the horses ability to be very goodWorking with horses can be a lot of fun. Everybody
observers. They notice every change in theirthat is willing to understand and respect the nature of a
environment and they are also able to read our bodyhorse is able to do it. Just learn from your horses!